What do you eat??

 I've had a lot of people ask me what food we actually eat.  Here are a list of staples at our house:

• Berries (blue berries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries)
• Hard boiled eggs
• Assorted fruits (melons, grapes, bananas, kiwi, etc) 
• Nuts (almonds, walnuts)
• Oatmeal
• Meat (Grass feed beef, chicken, pork, fish)
• Veggies

I think it's important to remember that eating healthy, unprocessed food is not complicated...in fact, it's easy.  For example, we eat fish regularly in our house.  This dish is SUPER easy!  All you need is Cod, olive oil, and Tony's and you have a main dish.  With chicken, I just saute veggies and throw in the chicken.  For beef I make a lot of roasts...beef, potatoes and carrots. Remember, the right seasoning can do wonders for meat. It is so easy to over complicate the idea of NOT using processed foods.  Sometimes for lunch all we have are berries, nuts and veggies...simple.

Another way to keep it simple is to remember you don't have to have a different meal every day of the month.  My family eats a lot of the same meals every week and there's nothing wrong with that!  I make my fish the same way every week and my hubby likes it.  For me, personally, that was something I had to get past for whatever reason.

Well, I'll let that be that for now!  The Bear family still has a long way to go and there's still so much I want to touch base on.  For example, there is food in our house that I question if it should be in there (bagels, pretzels, etc).  Also, I have terrible impulse control when I go over to my mother's house because she has all the "stuff" that I love (diet pop, cheese, chips, 100 calorie packs of chocolate goodness...).  I don't want anyone to think that we have it together, because we are a work in progress!!


Recommended Read:

If you haven't read the book "Food Rules" I would definitely recommend reading it.  It's a short read that gives you guidelines when eating food.  I think Americans view on food is so warped.  Just the other day I was in Wal-mart and as I was shopping an advertisement for Eggo waffles came on.  Basically, the ad was telling us (the consumers) how HEALTHY Eggo waffles are...and then I heard something about whole grain...yadda, yadda.  As a mom, you think, "I want whole grain and my family needs whole grain"!  Sounds great, right?  The truth is, there is a lot of other "stuff" in Eggo Waffles besides whole grain.  Look at the ingredients.  This brings us to a Food Rule I was talking about.  If a 3rd grader can't pronounce it, you shouldn't eat it.

No easy task

One would think that going from eating processed foods to REAL food would be easy.  Think about it.  Either eat chemically engineered food, or food from the earth.  Sounds simple, but it is not.  In fact, my life has completely changed because of this. 

After I banned hydrogenated oil and high fructose corn syrup from our house, the first few weeks of grocery shopping were very intense.  Just so you know, hydrogenated oil and corn syrup (which they are now calling it corn sugar) is in a lot of products.  I had to change taco shells, I could no longer buy rolls from the bakery, Yoder's mashed potatoes were out (LOVED them), canned tomatoes, I could no longer buy cake mixes...most of the food I bought, I could no longer buy AND I could no longer depend on convenience foods like Yoder's potatoes and mixes to help me out.

Also, food that I thought was "healthy" in the past, turned out not to be.  For example, I have been buying whole grain taco shells.  My thought process was, "They're whole grain, they have to be good for us.  After all it says so right on the package".  Now, I laugh at this!  If we believe what commercials and packaging say, EVERYTHING is pretty much "healthy".  General Mills claims that their cereals loaded with sugar are "healthy" because they have whole grains.  We cannot believe the packages, but sadly we do without even thinking.  After all, why would they want to lead us astray? :)

So now, here I sit thinking about dinner tonight.  I am having pork cutlets and do you know what goes really well with cutlets??  That's right, mashed potatoes.  So instead of calling on my friend, Mr. Yoder, I will be making my mashed potatoes from scratch - which I have never done.

Are you eating food or stuff?

I am on a mission.  I mission to eat better (and no, that doesn't mean eating 100 calorie packs of food with a diet coke :)).  I was recently challenged and educated about all the bad "stuff" in our food.  I am out to eliminate this stuff and get back to eating REAL food.

I figured why I am attempting to implement this lifestyle change in my family I would blog about it.  My goal is to go back to the basics.  I want to only eat food that comes from the earth.  This, I know, will be a challenge, but one I am up for.

Since I started this mission I have completely overhauled our kitchen.  Somethings you will never see at our house:

• Any meat from wal-mart (recommend watching Food, Inc - you'll be disgusted) We try to stick with meat free of antibiotics
• Eggs with hormones/antibiotics
• Hot dogs
• Cold meat
• Anything with hydrogenated oil and corn syrup
• Cereal
• Cow's milk (most dairy)
• MOST processed food (I'm a work in progress)
• Factory canned goods

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here for now.  There's so much to talk about!!  So, here we go!  Join me on this journey to a better lifestyle...